Empty Gold • d.meadowes

-50-

Dorcas checked the contents of her trunk, determinedly avoiding looking at her friends, who she was sure were staring at her. Her books were stacked on one side, and clothes on the other, with various assortment of other objects scattered around the middle. She gave them a fleeting look and closed the lid of the trunk before clasping it shut. She sighed, realising she could avoid her friends no longer and turned around to face them.

Maeve was on her bed, gazing intently at her, her eyes dangerously glossy. Silver was staring too, although she had a more understanding look on her face. Even Heidi was here to say goodbye.

Dorcas had been released from the Hospital Wing only yesterday. She had wanted to leave that very night, but Maeve had convinced her to stay one more day after she had failed to convince her to stay for their graduation ceremony. Dorcas vaguely remembered having signed up to sing at her graduation, and had the sudden urge to laugh. It seemed so long ago.

"Couldn't you at least stay until the end of term?" Maeve asked for the umpteenth time.

Dorcas didn't bother to reply this time, but fell back on her bed. Her friends had tried various means to make her stay - coaxed her, bribed her - but they simply did not understand that Dorcas didn't care about any of this anymore. Once upon a time, she had been very excited about her graduation, about singing with the choir, about leaving Hogwarts on those little boats that have brought them here seven years ago. It all seemed like a distant dream to her now, like she was reborn into a different world where the only thing that mattered was fighting for the Order to bring Voldemort down.

Silver said something to Maeve in a hushed voice. She couldn't make it out, but she didn't want to. The two had drifted apart from each other, but Silver usually revised for the exams with Maeve even though she still hung around with her new friends. Maeve acted oddly around her, but Dorcas knew that they had tried to make things normal between them for her sake. She was grateful for it but she couldn't tell them.

Dorcas looked at her watch. It was six thirty. Exactly half an hour later, she would be departing Hogwarts for the last time. She would no longer return to this room with its four four-poster beds, where she had spent a huge chunk of her time with her friends, studying, playing Exploding Snap, or simply just lazing around. She wouldn't walk the corridors anymore, nor would she sit at the Great Hall having her meals, gossiping and chatting with her friends.

Dorcas closed her eyes. She wished the three of them would stop staring at her and leave her alone, but she could find no way to let them know without sounding rude. Silver, however, understood for she seized Maeve's arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Let's go wait in the common room. Come on, Heidi."

She watched as they disappeared through the door, feeling thankful to Silver. She needed these last moments with herself.

She was dressed in plain muggle clothes - a red flowery top and a pair of her old jeans. From the pocket of her jeans she pulled out a crumpled bit of parchment, light blue in colour and faded. It was the letter from RadioRoll she had received, so very long ago, offering her a job in their team. She stared at the neat writings on the paper, her heart giving an odd little twitch as she read the letter for the hundredth time.

She had returned her answer last night using one of the school owls. She had rejected their offer, but thanked them for thinking of her. Neither of her friends knew about it; they still assumed that she would join them as soon as she left. Dorcas didn't have the heart to tell them - they had been far more excited about it than herself.

Before the words in the parchment could make her change her mind, she crumpled it into a ball, rather more furiously than she had intended, before tossing it into the wastepaper basket standing in the corner of the room. Deciding that she had nothing more to do here, she got to her feet, threw her school bag over her shoulders and hoisted the trunk onto its wheels. And, without looking back, she left the dormitories and climbed down the stairs, the trunk lifted a few inches above the ground using a simple hover charm to avoid collision.